IMANE KURDI THE idea is making waves in Britain. The charity Sustain, supported by 60 other organizations, has proposed that Britain introduce a 10 pence per liter tax on all beverages with added sugar and that the funds raised be used for programs to improve children's health. They estimate this tax could raise as much as £1billion a year. Sodas have no nutritional value. A can of cola is essentially liquid sugar with added flavorings to give it a dark color and the cola taste; a can of 7 Up, liquid sugar with a lime perfume; Fanta, liquid sugar with orange coloring and flavoring. The average can has the equivalent of nine teaspoons of sugar; that's a lot of sugar, and if that can is consumed by a child, that child has with just one drink exceeded the maximum medically recommended daily intake of added sugar. If your children are drinking several cans of soda a day, then they are consuming so much sugar that their long-term health will be damaged. Sugar is not benign. It looks innocuous, it tastes sweet as can be, but it's not harmless. Consuming large amounts of sugar is associated with significant health risks: obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension, not to mention rotting your teeth. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 100 calories from added sugar per day for women and 150 for men. A can of cola has as much as 150 calories from added sugar, and then there's all the other added sugar, the obvious ones – chocolates, biscuits, cakes, jam, and the less obvious ones – ketchup, cereal, canned beans. Added sugar creeps into our diets but sodas with added sugar are particularly bad for your health. So should they be taxed to discourage consumption? This is not a new idea. France passed such a tax in December 2011. But at 1cent per can, it's hard to imagine it will lead to a massive decrease in consumption. Still, Coca-Cola responded to the tax by saying it will suspend an investment program of 17 million Euros at its plant in southern France. It was, according to Coca-Cola, “a symbolic protest against a tax that punishes our company and stigmatizes our products". The soft drinks lobby is pretty fierce, just as its advertising might is colossal, and only the brave will dare to take it head on. Of course nobody forces people to drink sodas with added sugar, so we should live and let live, except that these brands are incredibly successful. From the Superbowl to the Olympics, from New York to Abha, you cannot escape their marketing campaigns and they are essentially urging us to consume a product that has at best no nutritional value and at worst is damaging to our health. The soda lobby, not surprisingly, considers the tax idea a poor one. For starters, it predicts that the tax will not have a substantial effect on consumption; those who like to drink the stuff will continue to drink the stuff, just pay more for it. And I concede it is a valid argument, unless that is the tax is high enough to make a difference. Fifty percent? I suggest this figure not randomly but because it is the tax level suggested by GCC Health ministers at a meeting last May. For the moment, it is just a proposal being studied, but if such a tax may be a good idea in Britain, it is even more needed in the GCC. The GCC has among the lowest prices for soft drinks in the world and among the highest levels of diabetes in the world. The International Diabetes Federation lists five GCC countries in its ten countries where diabetes is most prevalent. Saudi Arabia ranks seventh. In Kuwait, more than 20 percent of the population has diabetes. Clearly something needs to be done. Reducing sugar intake is not in itself a solution, much more needs to be done in terms of changing diets and lifestyle, but it could be part of the solution. Is taxing added sugar in sodas the way to reduce sugar consumption? Again, in itself it is not a solution, something more complex is needed but sodas are an obvious target because they represent such a high proportion of added-sugar intake. The American Medical Association (AMA), for example, estimates that they make up to half of the added sugar intake in the average American diet. The soda lobby point out that they have been reducing the amount of sugar in their drinks. In Britain, 61 percent of soft drinks are now sugar-free, but are non-caloric sweeteners the way forward? Are we replacing an evil we know with an evil we don't know? The long-term effects of noncaloric sweeteners remain to be seen. Perhaps they will be shown to be harmless, but for the moment we just don't know, not enough research has been done. Taxing sodas may sound a little too facile to be an effective solution, but is the principle any different to taxing tobacco? Yes, tobacco is far more dangerous to health, but the principle of taxing to discourage the consumption of something detrimental to health remains the same. I have mixed feelings about the idea. If the funds raised are used directly to fund health programs, why not, but if it ends up being just another tax that adds to household budgets without impacting on sugar consumption, then perhaps not. The real issue is getting all of us to eat less refined sugar. — Imane Kurdi is a Saudi writer on European affairs. She can be reached at [email protected]
